A Brief Interlude with Emotion- Revised!!
by Remembrance
Summary: This is short and undeveloped. I cried writing it though- read and review?


A Warning before Reading: I was just at a fanfiction site, reading romance and drama. I sobbed for a few hours, then resolved to write something incredibly depressing, upsetting....hope it turns out good.   
  
Hermione sat down on the bed, looking 10 years older then she was, which was particularly bad, seeing as she was only 15. Her frizzy brown was sticking up nearly on end, and her cinnamon eyes were bloodshot. She looked down at the crumpled sheet of paper in her hands and started with fresh floods of tears. "No. No, no, no, no." she whispered.  
The hurried handwriting and smeared ink told a tale behind the words written on the rough parchment. She could picture them in her minds eye, Ron, with the shifty look he got, Harry self consciously rubbing his scar. Represented clearly in the tiny TV playing in her troubled brain, she could see them scoop up the Invisibility cloak, the bundles of food and clothing, hop onto their brooms and go out the Gryffindor window.   
_Dear Hermione:  
It is with great sadness that I have to write this letter. We have to go Hermione, we don't want to. I don't want to, Harry doesn't want to, but the choice is out of our hands. Voldemort is at it again, killing people in Romania and surrounding countries. Charlie has asked Harry and I to help him. It seems that Harry has some sort of power force in him, something from Voldemort that was transferred to him when he was a baby. They asked Harry if he would be willing to try his luck against the armies. Not out on the battlefield, but in the barracks, using some sort of Divination connection to transfer some of this force to the soldiers. He said he would, but only if we could come with him. That was where the problem began. They don't allow women in most parts of Romania. Nothing against wizards, its a very complex Muggle custom. Its too much of a distraction to get you the proper papers. By the time everything was worked out, our cover would be blown. We wanted you to come with us, but you'd be killed. You understand, don't you? We couldn't tell you, it'd be to hard to leave. We WILL be back, this you can sure of, OK? Please just trust us. Your friends forever, with love,_  
Hermione stared bitterly at the rough signatures she loved so much. Gone, without her, to battle VOLDEMORT. She knew they were in danger, and yet there was nothing she could do. She had finally found something significant that her textbook training couldn't help her with.   
Shuddering violently, Hermione came to another realization. Who would she talk to, confide in, be with? She had two friends, and both were suddenly, painfully gone. She longingly watched the video in her mind, watched them leave the paper on her bedside. They had been RIGHT THERE! She tortured herself, going over all the now-obvious signs, telling herself she should have known. Precious sleep held out on her, and with the telltale signs of the morning sun, she begrudgingly made her way to the common room.  
At breakfast, the students seemed to notice Ron and Harry's absence, but the teachers were tightlipped and silent. Of course. Of course they would have known. It had probably been blasted all over bloody England. HARRY AND RON, OFF TO DO SOMETHING GREAT, DANGEROUS, EXCITING AND IMPORTANT WITHOUT THEIR BEST FRIEND!!!   
Hermione withdrew more and more as the weeks passed by without her friends. She still turned in her homework, of course, but far less time and trouble was being poured into it. Her standards rapidly dropping, her health rapidly deteriorating, the teachers began to worry.  
After two months, Hermione was no longer the person she had once been. Twenty pounds lighter, her hair had grown wild, and her face was permanently fixed in an unflattering position of anxiety. No word from the teachers (who still had not acknowledged that they were even gone), or from the "heroes" on their mission. Then something very unexpected happened.  
It was towards Christmas break when it all began, or rather, when it all ended. Hermione was sitting in the common room, staring blankly at the thick Transfiguration book in front of her. Then, as it sometimes happened when she stared for too long, she remembered why she was sitting alone, and she began to cry. Softly, but soundly, she allowed herself a wallow in her own pit of despair.  
"Such a beautiful face should never be sullied by tears," a deep, somehow familiar voice resonated behind her. She spun around with a gasp, and found herself staring into a pair of piercing, dark green eyes.   
"_Harry?_" her trembling voice whispered incredulously.  
"I'm home Hermione."  
  
  
  
  
At his voice, Hermione swayed on the spot. There he was, standing tall and strong, in front of her eyes. He grinned at her obvious surprise, and ran over to catch her as her knees began to give way.  
"Its you! I don't know whether to slap you or kiss you or..." she keep reaching up and touching his face, as if testing him, being sure he was not a ghost or wisp-person.  
"You understood? You got the note? God Hermy, you don't look like you've been taking this well."  
"'_This_'? THIS?" Hermione regained strength and turned to Harry with fire in her eyes. "You left me here!!!!! ALL ALONE!! I had no one, Harry, not a single person to confide in. I had no idea where you were, what was going on. No one bothered to fill lil ole Hermione in on the plan. I understood, because I had to understand. You hardly gave me room for any argument." She finished and crossed her arms, exhausted from her tirade.  
"I guess I deserve that," Harry murmured quietly.  
"I guess you do," retorted Hermione. "You could have been DEAD for all I knew."  
At her words, Harry winced and his eyes filled with tears that he tried to wipe away. Something spread through Hermione's body, something thick and dark and colder then colder could ever be. Foreboding throbbed through every vein, and the unasked question hung like an overripe plum.  
"Harry," she asked, her voice once more trembling, her unshed tears heavily choking her, "Where is Ron?"  
His head dipped into his lap and he began to shake. She heard deep, hideous gasps that she could only assume were desperate attempts to withhold sobs. She dropped down next to him and roughly pulled his head from his lap.  
"Where- is -he?" she drew out each word, tears already streaming across her lips and gathering at the point of her chin.  
"Hermione..." Harry looked down, not wanting to meet her desperate gaze.   
"...he's...well- it was a huge battle, an extremely important battle.   
Voldemort's forces were closing in, our own forces beaten down to shreds.   
The situation was desperate -" Harry's eyes were shadowed, lost in painful   
memory "-and he took charge. He- he performed a special type of curse- I   
couldn't have done anything, Hermione, I was helpless- he gave everything he   
had. A Refoarenmer curse, Hermione. It was the greatest magic he had ever   
done...will ever do. His greatest and last." Harry's voice choked, but he   
steeled himself and continued. "It drained all his strength, gave it me and   
the troops. We beat them with his sacrifice, Hermione, drove them far enough   
to way to call off the battle. Voldemort is still recovering from it."  
His breath was coming in shallow gasps, and Hermione was sitting, extraordinarily calm, digesting all the information. Harry stared at her with bated breath.  
"Hermy? Did you hear me?"  
She looked at him like it was the first time she had ever seen his face. "You're a liar. Not a very good one either," she said evenly.  
She stood up, smoothed out her robes and wiped the tears from her face. She went over to the window and stared with interest at the drab trees blowing in the wind outside.  
"Hermione," Harry slowly approached her stiff figure. "I- I wasn't lying. I- I'm sor-"  
Hermione swung around and punched him in the stomach. "Get away from me!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, running around the common room, breaking things and ripping pages from textbooks in her path, "You're LYING!!!!! YOU HAVE TO BE LYING!! PEOPLE DON'T JUST DIE!!!! Things like that happen in STORYBOOKS!! BUT NOT HERE!"   
Harry got the wind back in him and stared at her with tears running down his cheeks. Her first real brush with death. She threw herself down on the ground, sobbing. Harry rushed to her side.  
"You're lying, right? Please, please, please, Harry!! You're lying?" She pleaded with him, lying prone in his arms. He sadly shook his head, rubbing the tears from her face. She choked on her liquid sorrow, and pulled herself up. She ran up to her room, and Harry heard the slamming door echo in the deserted room. The dark folded around him, and he couldn't help thinking that the once-cozy place would never be the same again.  
  
  
The next morning Hermione came down with red eyes and frizzy hair pulled into a huge knot on her head. The common room had been wiped of all evidence of the previous nights events, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. So far so good. As she climbed out of the Fat Lady, she ran into Professor McGonagal. The latter drank in the former's appearance, and gave her a sympathetic half-smile.  
"Hermione, please take the day off. Harry's been to see me, and dear-" Hermione nearly gasped. McGonagal never showed that much emotion- dear? "Dear, you need rest."  
Everyone involved expected her to refuse, and bravely toil through the day. That's probably why, when she nodded and collapsed on the nearest couch, McGonagal rushed to her side.  
"Do you need anything? Hermione, I know this loss is hard."  
"You don't know hard," She spoke softly, but clearly, and then turned her head towards the gray back of the couch she had fallen into. She heard the footsteps of Professor leaving a few seconds later. She knew it probably hurt her, but she had no room left for conscience or emotion.  
The day passed like nothing was wrong, and that's what bothered her the most. People went about, eating normal food and doing normal schoolwork. The Weasley's had all left the school to be with their parents for a while, and most of the friends of Ron and Harry avoided her at all costs, having heard that she was "not taking the news well." She glared at the sunlight shining through the window, and scowled at any traces of laughter. Ron was gone, and in her opinion, life should stop.  
After a few days, when Hermione still hadn't gotten out of her chair to eat or change or anything, Harry got mad.  
"Listen Hermione Granger, you need to get up now. Look at yourself!! What do you think your proving? You can't just curl up and die!!"  
"Who are you to tell me what to do!! I don't get you at all. HOW ARE YOU NOT AFFECTED!?!?! OUR BEST FRIEND DIED!!" She shrieked and jumped up off the couch for the first time in nearly 4 days.  
"I AM affected. But I'm just taking it differently. People grieve in all different ways, Hermione. And this is mine. And I guess this must be yours, but you can't risk your health. This is hard to say, but Hermione," he lowered his voice, "it won't bring him back"  
He flinched, ready for her to go off again, but instead she sat down and cried softly into her hands. Harry went over and wrapped her in a huge hug. She cried for all the words said and all the words unsaid. She cried for all the happy times and all the sad ones. She cried that he was dead and she was living. She cried for the lives lost, the lives left, and the lives that would never be the same. Every tear held another thought, another story. Six years of friendship coursed out her eyes and onto her face and robes.  
"Hermione, if you'd like, I have something for you." She looked up, surprised at the tears that were dripping off his nose. He handed her a small, silvery orb that was silently hovering a few inches off his hand.  
"Its a sort of, good-bye," he began hoarsely, "a will in a way, but personal. We had to write one for our families, one for our friends and one for anyone else we wanted to say good-bye to. We knew going into it that it was a dangerous mission."  
Hermione trembled slightly, and took the spherical good-bye from Harry.  
"I have no idea what it says, but you might want to go somewhere private to listen to it." Harry advised. Hermione looked up at him with a tearstained face and nodded.  
Once she was settled in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, she looked at the orb floating above her hand quizzically. How did she turn it on? She poked and prodded at it, but it wasn't until she whispered his name that the ball seemingly split in two, to reveal a small holographic picture of a teenage boy with red hair and freckles.  
She gasped and stared at the grinning Ron. He was so carefree, so unaware. Did he know that horror he was about to face? Did he know he would be dead in less than 3 months? She was snapped out of her thoughts by his voice. It was so wonderful to hear his voice...  
"Hermione, hi!! How are you? I'm not even gone yet and I miss you already." Hermione closed her eyes, the tears already coming. The holographic Ron started to frown.  
"I hope your not crying Hermione. Please don't be sad. We have pictures and memories. Please don't be sad. It sounds corny and cliche and a ton of other stupid things, but I don't want you to spend your life missing me. Promise? You have to promise me that you'll be happy. Keep answering the questions right, every time, just like always. Harry, if he's still there, keep an eye on him, OK? He needs friends around him, and you need him too. Don't always try and be strong, OK? Accept help, and take it easy. No more episodes like in our third year." He grinned in remembrance, then became more serious. "Hermione I want to thank you. You've always been there for me. I can't picture a Hogwarts without you there, looking over my shoulder, keeping me in line. But more than that, you were my friend. For all our squabbles, all our disagreements, all our petty bickering, you've always been my friend. You are such a beautiful person, inside and out, and I am honored that I could be a part of your life." His voice grew gruff, and he cleared his throat uncertainly. "Don't cry for me Hermione. Smile, if not for anyone else, then for me. I love you." Then, almost as an afterthought, he nearly whispered, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, Hermione, that's why its called the present"  
Hermione leaned against the toilet behind her, sobbing as the holograph flickered and disappeared. She dropped the ball that had been in her hand and longed to hear one more note of the voice she would never forget. She laid back her head and allowed the tears to trickle down her chin and streak her throat.   
"He can't be gone, she can't be gone," the maddening chorus pounded in her ears, flowed through her veins. Her heart literally ached, and there was nothing she wanted more than to claw it out, thrust it into the toilet, and lie back to die. But no, Ron had said not to cry. He wanted her to smile.  
She picked the orb and rolled it around in her hands slowly. Ron had touched it not so long ago. He had touched it, and made a request of her. She straightened up, and swished her robes clean of dust. She went to the rusted tap and splashed her red face with water.   
With a heavy sigh, she rubbed the ball one last time, and settled it into her pocket, feeling far more brave then she ever had on her adventures with Harry. She nearly ran to the common room where an apprehensive Harry was nervously trying to catch up on his school work. As he looked up into her face, he prepared himself for tears and sorrow. The blinding smile almost knocked him over.  
"Are you OK?" he asked softly. She nodded slowly, persistently grinning.  
"So what now?" He asked rhetorically.  
"We should unwrap the gifts," she murmured, and he gave her a puzzled look.  
"What?"  
"Nothing. Come on, its time to go to lunch."  
As the two stood up and headed off towards the Great Hall, Harry took a long look around. No, it would never be the same. But that didn't mean it would be bad.  
"Harry, hurry up," Hermione was halfway down the hall.  
Together they walked away, remembering.  
  
*There is no such thing as loving and losing. The ones we love are with us forever*  



End file.
